TV, books, music, movies, snark. Not necessarily in that order. YA Writer (THAT TIME I JOINED THE CIRCUS, and TRACERS) and my first MG, SIT, STAY, LOVE came out January '16 from Scholastic.

Thursday, December 1, 2016

Not cool, Rory: How one scene in the new Gilmore Girls revival made this teacher sad

When the first
photos from the Netflix Gilmore Girls revival surfaced last spring, an image of
Rory standing in front of a class at Chilton was among them, and many assumed
that meant she went on to be a teacher at her alma mater. I even read an
article called “I’m Glad Rory Gilmore Became a Teacher.”

But, now it’s
the Fall (an upsetting time in Gilmore land, apparently)…and we know that not
only did Rory NOT become a teacher, she also very clearly expressed her disdain for the
profession.

Not cool, Amy
Sherman Palladino. Not cool.

Here’s how it
went down (minor spoiler alert if you haven’t watched the new series yet--though
I won’t get into the BIG SPOILER/ #lastfourwords.)

Rudderless Rory
goes to on some sort of alumni visit to Chilton. Headmaster Charleston pays her
a compliment, suggesting to her that she go back and get her Masters degree—and
that if she did so he’d be pleased to find her a place on the Chilton faculty.

This nice offer
Rory dismisses out of hand. This is the same woman, we have already learned, who is unemployed, has nowhere to live, and has in fact lost all her underwear.

But the teacher-bashing
does not stop there. Later, as unraveling Rory has a liquid lunch with Jess, THIS happens:

Rory: “This is
about my life. People come up and smell me…”

Jess: “What do
they smell?”

Rory: “Failure.
Headmaster Charleston told me to go get my masters so I could come back and teach
at Chilton. He could smell it.”

There you have
it. Teaching = Failure. Not just failure…smelly failure. The kind that smells.

As a teacher,
and a fan of Gilmore Girls, I’m sad
now. This kind of message does not:

A. help our teachers in any way to get the
respect they damn well deserve

B. help convince bright, talented kids who would be great teachers to
ever become teachers

C. do anything but suck

All of this is so much more heartbreaking because Rory was always such a smart yet cool girl. An icon for girls who read. The kind of gal who could definitely have grown up to be that one teacher who changes her students' lives. I’ve read a lot
about the revival, including this Washington Post article that claims new Rory is a
monster (which I ended up not entirely disagreeing with, and not only because
of the teacher-bashing). I think it’s possible some of the Palladinos' ideas
for Rory were originally envisioned for season 7 or 8—meaning a 22 or 23 year
old Rory. Rory at 32 should DEFINITELY know better.